Peter Julian on Supply

Mr. Speaker, I will be pleased to provide the parliamentary secretary with additional input. I hope that means there is an opening on the part of the government to finally start dealing with the communities in crisis across this country.

He mentioned balance. What was balanced about bringing in $4.6 billion in corporate tax gifts when the corporate tax rate in Canada is already lower than it is in the United States and not dealing with housing? There has been no housing funding from the federal government over the last 10 years.

As the parliamentary secretary well knows, in British Columbia we have seen a tripling of homelessness in areas on Vancouver Island and in the lower mainland. The lineups at food banks are getting longer and longer. The government and its provincial Liberal counterparts in British Columbia are responsible for that shameful record.

Fortunately the NDP forced changes and for the first time there will actually be funding going into housing. Post-secondary education is in a crisis as well. Thanks to the NDP we now have a budget that actually starts to deal with that crisis and starts to deal with the issue of access to training.

There was nothing balanced about the Liberal budget until the NDP brought in components to make it a better balanced budget. We have 19 seats now and after the next election if we have more, and the polls certainly indicate that we will, we will be pushing for even better changes.